Discussion: View Thread

  • 1.  Consultants as Mass Marketeers

    Posted 01-05-2003 00:14
    Most consulting firms, especially the larger ones, sell formula answers.
    Whether customers would be served better with custom answers is left to the
    customer to decide. Many customers just want CYA evidence, not answers.

    > Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 21:20:22 -0800
    > From: Conna Condon <gandolf@cyberverse.com>
    > Subject: Re: Knowledge management ...
    [...]:
    >
    > To have an "it" aren't we creating a boundary to create a product that is
    > sold? Is it the role of a consultant to sell a formula answer? Or, are
    > would we serve our customers better with research based custom solutions?
    >
    > Can consultants run their businesses as marketeers rather than salesman?
    >
    > (going back to my corner to behave).


  • 2.  Consultants as Mass Marketeers

    Posted 01-05-2003 15:29
    Jack has summed it up well. I agree, which is why I could never be a full-time consultant - unless I had an independent income, so I could afford to take "real" consulting jobs (ones in which the customer really wants something other than CYA).
    Edryce
    Jack Ring <jring@amug.org> wrote:Most consulting firms, especially the larger ones, sell formula answers.
    Whether customers would be served better with custom answers is left to the
    customer to decide. Many customers just want CYA evidence, not answers.




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  • 3.  Consultants as Mass Marketeers

    Posted 01-06-2003 10:38
    I said I'd "hush up", but I have to ask one more question of us.
    "Formula answers". Are these not models of some aspect of organizational
    effectiveness? What if these formulae work, haven been proven to do
    so over many applications? Should we academics not be hearing about
    these? I don't know about you folks, but it's no easy thing for me,
    a business professor, to get out there and spend much "quality time"
    in businesses these days. At least those consultants with their
    formulated answers seem to have to put their models to the acid test.
    I am sure we could toss off many criticisms of Six Sigma (in all
    its dresses), for example, but in the meantime, 1,000's of GE practitioners, for
    example, are out there applying those formulae on GE's nickel.
    What a body of empirical data that must be! Maybe one day someone
    will write about GE's experience with Six Sigma in one of our journals.
    Until then, that's just another one of those fads, I guess.

    Good Lord, why did I wake up this morning with a burr under my good nature?

    NOW, I'll hush.

    David



    -----Original Message-----
    From: Edryce Reynolds [mailto:edryce@yahoo.com]
    Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 3:29 PM
    To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
    Subject: Re: [MG-ED-DV] Consultants as Mass Marketeers


    Jack has summed it up well. I agree, which is why I could never be a full-time consultant - unless I had an independent income, so I could afford to take "real" consulting jobs (ones in which the customer really wants something other than CYA).
    Edryce
    Jack Ring <jring@amug.org> wrote:Most consulting firms, especially the larger ones, sell formula answers.
    Whether customers would be served better with custom answers is left to the
    customer to decide. Many customers just want CYA evidence, not answers.




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